Brother Roger's Contribution to Theological Thought

The year 2015 was the hundredth anniversary of the birth of Brother Roger and the tenth anniversary of his death. As part of the celebrations during that year, an international colloquium brought together theologians and theology students to Taizé to address the issue: did Brother Roger have a theology?

Brother Roger was not involved in academic discussions. But he developed an original thought, perceptible both in his writings and in the life of the community he founded and the youth meetings that it animates. Protestant, Orthodox and Catholic thinkers from different continents, through their contributions to the colloquium collected in this book, offer a glimpse of the magnitude of his legacy.

Described as a “theology of agape,” a “theology of love,” Brother Roger’s thought was reflected in his life as “hope in action.” His searching led him to discover a new road to reconciliation between Christians, described by Cardinal Walter Kasper as a “paradigm of the ecumenical journey.”

Brother Roger renewed reflection on how to communicate the message of the Gospel to the younger generations. In the realm of spiritual life, his thinking “awakened the spaces of the heart” and thus linked up with a deep aspiration of the Christian East. It opened Protestant theology to the value of monastic life. It pointed the way to a simpler Church, close to the poor, devoid of means of power. It had unexpected influences in Brazil, South Africa, India....